Facebook’s exclusive Major League Baseball broadcasts have been met with a number of unhappy fans who would prefer to watch the game on traditional television. Their first stream of Mets – Phillies during Major League Baseball’s opening week was met with endless complaints of annoying graphics and glitches during the stream. Critics have calmed in the subsequent Facebook broadcasts, but viewership is still lower than expected.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer Facebook’s MLB broadcasts have averaged between 65,000 and 85,000 concurrent viewers through their first three streams of the season. The Philadelphia Inquirer also reported the Royals and Blue Jays garnered 6.8 million global views, which is measured as a viewer who checks into the game for at least three seconds.
As Awful Announcing notes, a divisional game presented exclusively as a national broadcast should attract several hundred thousand viewers, not 65,000. However, national games are never broadcast on a Wednesday afternoon, making it harder to judge what Facebook’s number should be. Last season, in terms of national MLB broadcasts, FOX averaged 2.05 million viewers during their regular season broadcasts and 448,000 for FS1 telecasts.
A linear network would garner an audience larger than Facebook’s 65,000 – 80,000, but a midday telecast during the week would certainly fall short of their weekend numbers. One of Facebook’s selling points is the ability for someone at work to watch the game when they don’t have access to a television. Since Facebook holds exclusive rights, there are no blackout restrictions.
6.8 million global views, even if only for three seconds, appears impressive and shows there’s a larger audience available for Facebook and Major League Baseball to tap into. It’s difficult to judge how many of those views were made with intent, similar to the amount of people that channel surf, scrolling through FOX to get to another network. People will click something they see on Facebook without knowing what it is or having any intention of staying on the page.
6.8 million global views also does not mean 6.8 million different viewers, between my phone and desktop, I clicked in and out of the Mets – Phillies game at least a dozen times during the course of the three hour stream.
Facebook will broadcast a total of 25 games this year, costing them a little more than $1 million per game, totaling between $30 and $35 million for the season. Although Amazon’s Thursday Night Football streaming deal is not exclusive, they spent $4.5 million per game last season and averaged 310,000 viewers. With those numbers, both Amazon and Facebook have spent approximately $14 per viewer.
Both partnerships include other aspects and perks, its value does not come down to only viewership, but $14 per viewer is significantly more than any television network pays for their broadcast rights fees.
Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.
